


How The Light Gets In

by daaebolic



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Modern!Erik wears a mask, Musicians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-09-26 13:04:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9898298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daaebolic/pseuds/daaebolic
Summary: Christine Daaé attends a prestigious music school known as The Conservatory in London. When she's paired with the school's infamously anti-social pianist for his senior recital, Christine's world gets turned upside down.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not familiar with London outside of what I could find on the Internet so please excuse any discrepancies in my attempt to world-build.
> 
>  
> 
> _Forget your perfect offering._  
>  _There is a crack, a crack, in everything._  
>  _That’s how the light gets in._  
> 

I noticed him for the first time at a bonfire. The night was dusky and pale with moonlight. The patches of stars were certainly brighter than in Göteborg and yet couldn’t possibly compare to the view from Twin Peaks on a clear night. My father and I would escape from the monotony of having to spend our day on the go; he would wake at an egregious hour in the morning in order to make the six thirty-five BART to teach music theory at San Francisco State University. I, on the other hand, would spend time exploring the city with school friends late into the evening, despite having to be at school by eight. 

We spent the summers playing music at open mics with various city musicians, some of which were our closest family friends. After spending a few years living in Paris with my father, we were comforted by the familiarity of the Chagny’s thick accent. And, through a sponsorship program, the family paid for me to attend the same prestigious music school as the Chagny boys in Berkeley. 

By the time the routine of comfort I experienced while living my decadent ‘Frisco life settled in, I had already submitted my application to the Conservatory in London and been accepted, which is how I found myself here, sitting across from a guy wearing a mask with a bonfire separating us by a narrow eight feet. I had grabbed a pint of some brownish ale during the last pass of the pitcher and I gave it a half-hearted sip. I decided it wasn’t for me and used the excuse of putting my drink down to look anywhere but across the fire pit. There wouldn’t be snow yet for another few weeks, but the air was still crisp with frost and I was dressed in my warmest blue sweater and red scarf. 

Next to me, Meg was bouncing along to the upbeat Irish jig Ben and Reese were attempting to perform. For the most part, they were hopping from one foot to the other in a drunken, off-key rhythm that proved without a shadow of a doubt that even well-trained musicians were just as susceptible to the intoxicating effects of mixing liquors as any average person with a basic understanding of tempo or pitch. 

We were a conglomerate of actors, musicians and dancers. I was somewhat of an outlier, the only one part of the classical voice programme out of the fifteen or so of us who often congregated at Professor March’s London townhouse during the rare long weekends we had between months of rigorous study. She’d given us special permission to host an end of the Autumn term party at her place and though she trusted us to not destroy her home, I did not possess the same faith. 

“Meg,” I said. I had to speak louder than I would normally, which was a volume that always earned me an interruption mid-speech from teachers who liked to say things like “speak up” and “can everyone in the back hear Christine?” so that I would have to stop and start over. 

“Are you enjoying this?” She glanced at me.

“Somewhat,” I said. It was no secret that I fell on the more introverted side of the spectrum. I wasn’t anti-social by nature, but big, rowdy gatherings were not places I flourished. Though I considered myself to be an outgoing person, Meg liked to remind me of the time I drank a little too much at a Reese’s flat and vomited on her pug Frankie and then promptly left without so much as an apology or a good night. My father, who was fond of fine whiskey and a good cabernet, predicted that I would never be a drinker. My mother too was a light weight, an unfortunate predilection often described as the ‘asian glow’ which she had passed onto me. From my father, I had inherited his dark, Iranian curls and a light dusting of freckles.

“Well,” Meg said with an air of decisiveness, like she was delivering a verdict. “If you want, we can bail and grab curry and watch _Elaine Stritch at Liberty_ for the hundredth time.”

“You know just how to talk to a girl,” I said with a wink. 

“Oh darling, I can do so much more than just talk,” Meg said, which earned a laugh from Reese and confused look of anguish from Ben.

“I didn’t know you were bisexual too, Christine,” Ben said.

“I’m not bisexual, I’m pan,” Meg responded. 

“You could be asexual like our Erik,” Reese said, gesturing to where the masked man, Erik, was seated. It was a mean comment, one I took to reflect Erik’s lack of sociability and an obvious product of Reese’s lowered inhibitions and loose tongue. Erik stiffened in his seat at the sudden lull in conversation brought upon by the mere mentioning of his presence. 

“That’s…” Erik started. He seemed unable to find the words to address Reese’s uncomfortable statement. “That’s mostly to do with the circumstances of…” he tried again, gesturing to his masked face and avoiding eye contact. His accent was odd, to say the least. Much like mine, it was unsure of itself, a bit Parisian, a bit Welsh, and mixed with something entirely unrecognizable to me. We were an international bunch, so it wasn’t unsurprising to encounter a wide variety of languages and accents at the Conservatory. 

“Alright-y!” Meg said. “Enough over-sharing, who wants to do a shot!” 

“What happened to Elaine Stritch?” I asked. Meg was great at defusing tension, a skill that solidified our friendship. We’d met in a jazz pedagogy class the term following the death of my father and she’d helped me negotiate deadlines with the professor through the various bouts of depression I experienced that year. 

Meg shrugged. “Let me indulge for a wee bit longer and then we’ll be on our way.” Ben and Reese and a few others were gathered around the outdoor bar, where Michael was pouring shots of Absolut into miniature red solo cups. Meg bounced up from her chair and joined them and I was left alone with Erik. I couldn’t help myself—I stole glances at him in between my precursory attempts to look anywhere else but across from me. He was tall, this much I could tell. His knees jutted out at an acute angle adjacent to his body from where his Oxford-clad feet were planted. The chair was obviously too low to the ground to provide any proper comfort. 

Like most of the people here, he was well dressed in a black tuxedo that rose up around his ankles and revealed red argyle socks. I assumed he had just played his last recital earlier this evening which would make him either a pianist or violinist or both, as was often the case. My recitals had ended over a week ago and juries for the Classical Voice Conservatory had just concluded. I wouldn’t have class again until the 9th of January, a good three weeks away. 

The mask itself was almost unnoticeable at first glance, an obvious mockery of a face. It covered a well-sized portion of his skin, save but his mouth and a few inches of forehead. He had a strong jaw and sharp eyes and a full mouth set in a permanent grimace framed by slicked dark hair with a few loose strands.

It was at this time that Erik’s gaze flicked across the fire to look directly at me that I noticed his eyes were two different colors. I looked away, surprised and embarrassed at this sudden eye contact. I was sure Erik must’ve been annoyed at my curiosity. 

“Christine!” Meg shouted across the patio. “Join us!” Michael too was regarding me with an expectant look. It was no secret that he fancied me. 

“No thanks,” I said. Meg shrugged and turned to Michael, offering him a sympathetic pat. 

I watched them down shot after shot. Meg’s face was twisted in disgust, the grimace cutting across the fine features of her face like a knife. She’d had her hair done a week prior and the periwinkle box braids swung with the movement of her body as she danced to some hip hop song with Reese. The crowd had thinned; a few people had moved inside, some to relieve themselves and others to forage for food in the neglected kitchen; Michael was flirting badly with two girls who were seated at the fountain to the left of the fire pit; Ben, meanwhile, was conducting a discordant rendition of “Ave Maria” with two blokes I only knew through Meg. They were dancers, like her, and I’d worked with them in shows before but never bothered to learn their names. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ben said. “No Jorge, that’s not even in the same key—Christine! Christine, come here!”

I smiled and shook my head. “Oh no, I know what you’re trying to do.”

“At least help me with these poor, talentless fools, then,” Ben said.

“I resent that,” the dark haired bloke, Jorge, said. 

“I bet Danny doesn’t,” Ben said, jabbing the blond in his side with his elbow.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Danny joked. He spoke with a standard American accent, an obvious product of the San Fernando Valley.

I acquiesced and rose from my place to join them at the bar, happy for the excuse after Erik caught me looking at him. Danny greeted me by name and I flushed, promising myself I wouldn’t forget their names again. 

“Let me hear your scales,” I said. Jorge and Danny broke into an awful, yowling sort of singing. They were enthusiastic, but ultimately too drunk to even recognize how atrocious they sounded. 

“Boo!” Meg said. “Christine, you do it. This is painful.”

“I don’t think that’s wise,” I said. It wasn’t that I was shy about singing, it was my favorite thing to do. I was, however, on mandatory vocal rest and I had taken up smoking again, almost immediately after the end of juries. I only ever smoked a pack at most during the winter holiday, an arrangement I’d made with my vocal coach, Denise. It was a necessary evil, a much-needed stress reliever for the anniversary of my father’s death, which happened to fall on the 28th of December. 

Ben opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a clatter.

“Absolutely not you idiot!” Everyone’s heads snapped around to see Erik clutching his masked face and recoiling from Michael’s outstretched hand. Erik had risen so suddenly his chair had been knocked over in his haste. 

“Why not? It’s probably not that bad,” Michael said. On his face he wore a righteous look of indignation, like he was being denied some kind of fundamental right. 

“Not that bad? Are you bloody joking?” Erik said. His face was screwed up in disgust and fear underneath the mask and he was choking in harsh, fast breaths, something I recognized as the onset of a panic attack. 

“I’m not joking, let me fucking see!” Michael said, belligerent and drunk. He moved as if to grab for the mask again and Erik put his hands up, not in self-defense, but in preparation. He grabbed Michael’s hand and twisted it rightwards, causing Michael to cry out in pain. He raised his left hand and curled the long fingers into a fist. His breaths were coming in harsher now and I watched his fisted hand tremble, white-knuckled. I moved to intercept, as if I could do anything between two men who were at least ten inches taller than me. 

“Erik!” Meg shouted. Her tone was scolding and reeked of a familiarity that caught me off guard. 

At the sound of her voice, Erik’s fist snapped down to his side and he released Michael’s wrist. Michael stumbled back and tripped, much to the delight of Ben, who could barely stifle his laugh. The two girls Michael had been chatting up rushed to his side and helped him to his feet.

“You psycho freak!” Michael yelled and Erik winced as if he’d been struck.

Meg moved forward to touch Erik’s shoulder, but the damage had already been done. He shook off Meg’s hand, turned his back on Michael, gathered his coat, and exited through the side gate. 

“It was only a matter of time,” Jorge whispered to me. 

“That’s totally not fair,” Danny said. “The guy was just trying to have a good time.”

“Who even invited him?” Ben asked. I had to admit, I was curious too. Erik’s mask and temper were off-putting at worst, but it was his sudden appearance and Meg’s familiarity that piqued my interest. 

“I did,” Meg said from behind me. She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and leaned her entire weight on me, a sign she was properly lashed. 

“How’d you even meet him, anyway?” Ben asked. “He keeps to himself and is a right bastard if memory serves me well.”

“He lived with me and Mum, for a time,” Meg said. Her words slurred together. It was like the altercation and Erik’s unnerving calmness had taken something out of her, too. “He was sitting all alone after the recital, no friends or family.”

From across the way, I could hear Michael’s drunken exclamations. Reese was trying to pat his shoulder, but he shoved her hand off each time it made contact. The two girls who had helped him up had vanished. The party was thinning. People were leaving or settling in Professor March’s house for the night. 

“It was a pity invite, then?” Jorge asked.

“I suppose, if you want to put it that way,” Meg said. She then turned to me and cupped my face with both hands. “Christine. Christine! Can we go now?”

“Yeah, of course,” I said. I laced her arm back over my shoulder and reached for my phone. “I’ll find us an Uber.” 

We said goodbye to the others, gathered our bags and coats, and left through the same gate as Erik had. I was half expecting to find him in the front yard, but there was no one. We sat on the front porch steps and huddled together for warmth and waited for the Uber, which was six minutes out. Professor March’s townhome was in South Kensington, a far cry from the flat Meg and I shared with two other roommates in Greenwich. It was a modest living arrangement that forced all four of us to take up part-time jobs in addition to our schooling. Both Meg and I worked at a small, student pub not three minutes from our street. The Conservatory, a highly selective music institution with a student population of nearly nine hundred, was located near Holland Park and was about an hours commute. Cars were impractical when we lived as we did, so the Tube was our primary mode of transportation. Tonight, however, I didn’t mind spending the extra twenty pounds to get us home at 3 AM safely. 

“So…” I started. I knew that as soon as we got into the Uber, Meg would be passed out for the entirety of the fifty minute drive to our flat. I retrieved my box of cigarettes and lighter from my green satchel and offered one to Meg.

“I should message him, right?” Meg said. She lit her cigarette and took a long drag. “This is my fault.” 

“Michael or Erik?” I asked. 

“Erik, obviously. Michael can sod off for all I care. Wanker.”

“Your Mum rented a room to him?” It was an innocent question, but I had to repress the feeling of betrayal that threatened to rear its ugly head. Meg and her Mum were somewhat mysterious to me still, despite having known Meg since my first year. We were both twenty-one, but age was nominal at the Conservatory, where talent always took precedent. 

“When I was still in sixth form. He needed a place to stay while his flat got renovated. There was a fire, or something,” Meg said. “Said he would put in a good word for me at The Conservatory.”

“Who is he then to have that kind of power over the administration?” I asked. The Conservatory was infamous for its prioritization of applicants based on silly, inconsequential things like money, status, or family background, as was my case. 

“Some think he’s the Dean’s son, I just think he’s that damn good,” Meg said. 

“I’ve never heard of him before,” I said. 

“Keeps to himself, really. I’m not surprised. He insists on only working with a select few professors, and always one-on-one.” 

“He seems like a pompous arse,” I said. 

“He is, there’s no doubt about it. He was a good roommate, though. Quite and clean. And respectful, which Mum loved. We never cared that he was an odd one, just that he paid his rent on time.” 

“And the mask?”

“I mean, it’s obvious right? He’s got a facial deformity.” Meg flicked her finished cigarette into a potted rose plant on the porch. 

“I suppose,” I said, and then, “Have you ever seen his face.”

“Not even once,” Meg said. Her eyes were shut and I put my arm around her. 

A red sedan pulled up in front of the house and the driver rolled down the window. 

“You girls my passengers?”

In response, I stubbed out my cigarette and helped Meg to her feet. I made sure to wrap her coat around her more securely, she had a history of losing things in Ubers. We hobbled our way to the car and the driver, seeing the state Meg was in, got out and opened the door for us.

“Thanks,” I said. I buckled Meg in and went around to the other side. Meg was already asleep with her forehead pressed against the window and mouth hanging open by the time the driver rounded the corner.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christine receives a surprise visit from the masked stranger she encountered at the party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try and bust out a chapter every 2-3 weeks if I can. Thank you to all who've read, left kudos, and bookmarked!

The rest of the winter holiday passed in much the same way as most winter holidays in London do.

Meg and I busied ourselves with work, picking up as many shifts as we possibly could. The weeks leading up to Christmas and the New Year were always the busiest seasons because of the touristry. Most of our usual student and professor patrons had left the city to return home, so instead we dealt with the clueless tourists asking us the same redundant questions about life in London. However, as most of our patrons were from out of country, the tips were often heftier as they were still unfamiliar with the tipping etiquette in Britain. 

I also taught music lessons pro bono at the Greenwich Music Store, a modest outpost that allowed me to work my love for music into the few, musicless and frigid weeks of the holiday. The young children who filled the practice studio with their laughter and halting arias helped me get through the most trying time of the year for me: the anniversary of my father’s death.

As was my routine for the last four years, I visited my father’s grave with a bouquet of fresh, white roses and a few ceremonial candles of the Catholic persuasion. And, at the suggestion of a school counselor, I talked to him. 

I wasn’t a religious person and neither was my father, but we had clung to the customs of tradition and attended mass on Easter and Christmas every year. My mother had died when I was still an infant and it had changed something in my agnostic father. Like me, she was a singer, and they had met performing Mozart together at the Göteborg Concert Hall. Her wealthy Chinese family disapproved of their daughter’s choice to marry a half-Iranian, half-Swedish mutt and his family, interracial though they were, were offended by the notion of my very nationalistic father marrying a first-generation immigrant. Though their families despised the union, they married anyway and settled in the city to be closer to the music, their lifelong work. He often referred to her as the Angel of Music and he protected her legacy in nightly stories and semi-religious observances. From both I had acquired a love of music from a young age. 

My father moved us to Paris once I was old enough to travel. He couldn’t bear to stay in Göteborg, where everything reminded him of my mother. I spent the better part of my primary education at an all-girls boarding school while my father played violin with the Orchestre Nationale de France. Because I was so young and the Orchestra traveled as often as twice a month, he felt it better to leave me at school, even during holidays. That unfortunate decision earned me special attention from the school’s staff and a significant amount of bullying from my peers. 

By the time I was ten, I had spent only a handful of Christmases with my father. I remember telling him off one Christmas for his negligence, which I had become cognizant of only the year prior when I realized everyone but me had a family to go home to, even during the school year when classes were still in session. What I didn’t expect was for him to break down in a fit of tears and hold me close and promise never to leave me again. I didn’t know yet that he had retired from playing violin at a professional level and instead found a job in San Francisco. I hadn’t been sad to leave my boarding school behind, but it had been the only life I knew. My father reassured me, however, that wherever we went, we would be together. For me, that was enough.

It was around this time that my father discovered my ability to sing. From his perspective, it wasn’t just the way I sounded, but also my deep understanding of pitch, of how to fit vowels and consonants together, of how to bring the emotion of a song into my voice. He enrolled me in vocal training, with a focus on Bel Canto technique. Choir had been my one reprieve at boarding school, the only place I felt I was important. Through our love of music, we bonded. No longer was my mother the sole Angel of Music, I too took up the mantle. And though he would never admit it for fear of invalidating my talent, I sounded just like my mother, who’s recording of “Exsultate, jubilate” I clung to. 

I was teaching music lessons on the final day of winter break. In between classes, I would help the staff of the Greenwich Music Store by manning the front desk while they took their lunch breaks. Raoul had called me earlier in the day while I was working with Bree, a twelve-year-old soprano-in-training. I had every intent to call him back once I realized I had missed his call, but now I wasn’t so sure. Raoul enjoyed dredging up the past to make sure I was “doing okay” in my often hectic life. And it wasn’t so much his concern that bothered me, but his general distaste and lack of understanding for the times that I wasn’t okay. Raoul, with his easy-going personality and wealthy, loving family, hadn’t faced much hardship in his life. Though Raoul and I texted every day, we had grown distant from each other. I no longer told him everything, as I once had. He had changed in an inexplicable way and at times I felt he was a stranger to me, a confident, popular young man with a thriving social life whose biggest worry was figuring out how he could get out of going home for Easter and instead go on a trip to Cancun for spring break. 

When we met the Chagny’s, I had just been accepted to the Berkeley Academy of Music. It was a selective school, and an expensive one at that. They were picky about whom they offered scholarships to and though I was good enough to warrant one, it still didn’t cover the costs of the tuition, let alone the transportation and other expenses. It had been around this time that my father had been struggling with how to tell me I couldn’t attend the Academy that the Chagnys came into our lives. 

They were old money from France, living for some reason in San Francisco. The details of how they had come to America were murky, but it was through their sponsorship that I had been able to attend the Academy in the first place. My father had met Mr. Chagny at an open mic, where he was playing the upright base with a local jazz band. They hit it off spectacularly well, bonding over their love of travel and music. From there, we had dinner with them, where I met Madame Chagny, Philippe, and Raoul. Raoul and Philippe attended The Academy as jazz musicians, like their father, though I would come to discover that both were rather passionless when it came to their art and attended the school to please their family and to get into a good college.

Within a month, Raoul was my closest confidante at school, much to the distaste of Madame Chagny, who suspected there was something more between us and therefore thought it improper for us to be spending so much time alone together. Madame Chagny was wrong, of course. Though I loved Raoul, I was inept when it came to relationships. He had confessed on a few occasions that he wanted something more, but I was reluctant, too afraid to upset our friendship for something as trivial as allowing him to call me his girlfriend. 

When I’d gotten accepted at The Conservatory, my father had dropped everything to move to London with me. Our first year in London had been blissful, but it all came crashing down when a doctor had noticed the first signs of tumor growth. A year later, he was diagnosed with leukemia. What had ensued were months of hospital visits that turned into weeks of chemo and no sign of remission. My father, at the ripe age of fifty-nine, died in his own bed with his daughter by his side listening to Schubert’s piano trio no.2 in e-flat, as he had wanted. 

The Chagnys had offered to pay for the funeral when they found out. Through my numbness, I agreed. I wasn’t a proud person, but the Chagnys had already paid for so much in my lifetime that it still stung to allow them to take care of yet another expense. However, I had no close family relatives and only a few friends in London, which made them the next best thing. The entire family had flown out to London to meet me and see to the funerary expenses. 

Raoul always called me on the anniversary and I always obliged him. He had asked to buy me a plane ticket to San Francisco so I could spend Christmas with him and his family, but I was already planning on returning to America for Philippe’s graduation from Yale in May. It was an excuse at best; though the Chagnys were like family, there constant worry made me feel claustrophobic. I barely maintained contact with them out of self-preservation, Raoul being the exception. I was much like my father, too willing to push those closest to me away for fear of the reminder of what I had lost. 

I was so distracted in my contemplation of whether I should return Raoul’s call that I missed the sound of the bell on the front door which signified a customer had entered. Because of the clutter that permeated the shelves and aisles, the front door was never visible to anyone standing behind the register. My phone was on the counter top, face up. I hadn’t even unlocked it since I saw the notification for Raoul’s call and now the screen was lighting up with other notifications, daring me to check if Raoul had left me a voicemail, or a text message. 

“Excuse me,” a voice said from in front of me. I jolted and looked up and the dutiful look of customer service settled on my face.

However, I was even more caught off guard to see Erik standing in front of me. Though his clothes were more casual than the night of the party, he was still well-dressed in a black button up, paisley waistcoat, and slacks. He had changed his mask as well; the onyx colored mask fitted his face like it was a second skin and shone in the fluorescent lighting of the store. 

“Oh,” I said. “Hi.” My face flushed.

“I’m looking” Erik started, and then cut himself off. His left hand was tapping out a nervous rhythm on his thigh and he avoided looking directly at me. In this lighting, I could see the striking color of his eyes, which confirmed my original observation that he had heterochromia. 

“Our piano section is right over there,” I said, gesturing to the back of the store, where an ivory baby grand stood on display. I wasn’t sure if he was a pianist, but his long fingers and demeanor struck me as being perfect for sitting behind the lid of a of a Bösendorfer.

“Thank you,” Erik replied with a sneer. He turned on his heel and marched off as if I had offended him.

I watched Erik mull around for a bit with both of his hands in the pockets of his slacks. On occasion, he would reach out and stroke a hand down the side of the baby grand, or across the covers of music books. He had ballerina hands, as Meg liked to describe them; his middle finger was slightly extended above the rest of his fingers and he moved with purpose, as if each touch had been thought out beyond just the impulse to fulfill a tactile need.

My phone rang again, blaring Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” over the Tchaikovsky playing on the speakers overhead. It was my ringtone for Raoul, a relic of the affectionate relationship we had once shared. I answered only out of embarrassment. Erik had turned to glare at my phone and I was now struck with how uncomfortably awkward my intense study of his hands might appear.

“Hey,” I said into the phone. “Sorry, I can’t talk for long, I’m at work.” I stepped around the corner of the wall behind the front desk into one of the studio rooms. 

“ _Work_ , work or that music store you volunteer at?” Raoul asked. His voice was gruff and comforting and like always, the notions I had of Raoul as a hedonistic and rather self-absorbed frat boy fell away to be replaced by the memories I had of my gentle, caring friend. 

“Music store,” I responded. 

“Wow, every time I talk to you, your accent gets stronger,” he said. 

I smiled and said, “Raoul you absolute plonker, Cockney is the accent of a true Londoner.”

“Ouch. Never do that again,” Raoul said and I laughed.

“I’ll FaceTime you later, around nine your time,” I said. 

“Sounds like a date,” Raoul said. 

“It is most certainly not a date,” I said. “Unless you can figure out how to buy me Chinese take-away from Stanford.”

“Nothing compares to our dim-sum place in Chinatown.”

“Don’t remind me,” I said. “I would kill for just one steamed pork bun.”

We said our goodbyes and I returned to my place at the front desk, where Erik was waiting. 

“Do you always take calls when you’re on the clock?” he asked. My face flushed in embarrassment and then a hot flame of indignation licked its way up my back into my throat. 

“Do you always threaten to punch people at parties?"

My defensive response seemed to catch him off guard. “I— that was—I am not at all responsible for that drunken idiot’s—”

I cut him off before he could continue. “I work here for free, I’ll take calls whenever I please.”

“Oh,” he said. 

“Right.”

A few moments passed with Erik refusing to meet my gaze.

“Did you need something?” I asked. 

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said. 

“You didn’t.” Though I hadn’t realized it, my arms were crossed over my chest. I dropped them down to my sides as a sign that I was willing to make peace. My hands had somehow become moist from the interaction and I rubbed my palms against my jeans to dry them. Confrontation was not my strong suit, but I had been raised to stand up for myself. 

“I need a singer,” Erik said. He looked at me when he said this and I had to look away from the intensity of his gaze. I didn’t know him well enough for that level of eye contact, a boundary he himself was not aware of. 

“My senior recital is at the end of this term,” he continued. “I would sing it myself if that were permitted.”

“Are you asking me to sing for you?”

“Yes,” he said. 

“So, ask me.”

“What?”

“Ask me to be your singer. Nicely.”

Erik was dumbfounded at my words. He recovered and schooled the shocked look on his face.

“Christine,” he said. “Will you sing my music for me?”

“Yes,” I said. I had barely considered it before the word slipped my mouth. Perhaps it was his willingness to play my silly game of semantics, or the indescribable air of mystery that surrounded him, but I wanted to know more. I hadn’t even given myself the chance to figure out how to work his senior recital into my already crowded schedule of classes and performances. 

“Good,” he said. “Meet me at Kresge hall, room 307, on Tuesday at 8.” A red flush had ridden up his face from his neck to his forehead. I could only imagine what that blush looked like under his mask. 

“We should exchange numbers,” I suggested. I retrieved my phone from my back pocket and handed it to Erik. When at first he didn’t grab it out of my hand, I drew back.

“Is there a problem?” I asked. 

“I don’t have a cell phone,” he said. 

“Email?” I tried to keep the credulity out of my voice. 

“I do have one of those,” he said. 

I fumbled around for a bit of paper and a pen and passed the items to him once I had found them. He wrote out his email and then his name, underlining the ‘k’ twice, and handed the paper and pen back to me.

“Until Tuesday,” Erik said and then turned to leave.

“Wait!” I exclaimed before he could round the aisle that prevented me from seeing him. “How did you know my name?”

Erik turned back to me. His forehead was crinkled with contemplation. I could tell he was calculating his next words. 

“I attended your winter recital last month,” Erik said. “It was entirely precursory.”

“Precursory?”

“I was looking for my singer,” Erik said with a shrug. “You are an exceptional singer, though don’t think that means that this won’t be an incredibly difficult task. I can be quite demanding.”

“I can handle myself,” I responded. His lips quirked up and then back down, as if he wouldn't allow himself to smile.

“Good,” he said and then walked out of sight. I heard the bell and then the pounding of my own heart in my ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse the sloppy excuse of editing I did on this before I posted. If you seen any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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